Double Take
by VnixxiR
Summary: Shepard and Liara meet on Illium for the first time in two years.  Things have changed, more for one than the other.   FemShep.  Mild spoilers for ME2.
1. Shepard

**Shepard**

* * *

"Shepard… are you… shaking?"

"What? No, I'm not shaking."

"She's shaking?"

"I'm not shaking!"

I turn to glare at the Turian with the stupid grin on his face and the Quarian with her arms folded across her chest and one eyebrow raised. Well, if one could see Tali's eyebrows I have little doubt it was quirked questioningly. Do Quarians even have eyebrows? Turians don't. Salarians and Krogans don't either. Not even Asari—well with the exception of—crap! I whirl back around to stare at the closed door to her office in front of me. Focus! I scold myself.

"So uh, Shepard… you wanna open that door right about now?"

"I'm going, Garrus, jeez! Relax!" I snapped back at the amused voice. I take a slow breath before reaching for the interface flickering in the center of the door.

"And for the love of god, stop shaking!" Garrus hisses as the metal spins and pulls apart, out of the way giving us a view of the office behind it.

"I told you I'm not-!"

"Have you ever faced an Asari commando unit before?" A familiar, softer, silkier voice cuts me off, "Few humans have." No, more like it cut _through_ me—with an edge that is anything **but** familiar.

When I finally turn to look, the fact that her back is turned to me doesn't prevent the infuriatingly cliché butterflies from fluttering around my gut. Damn metaphorical butterflies.

"I'll make you a deal: either you pay me or I flay you alive. With my mind." I find myself swallowing thickly. Well, that's one way to get rid of the butterflies.

"Shepard!" A flash of a memory flickers behind my eyes. _Normandy SR-1, Medbay, Liara smiling at my return from a routine survey mission._ In a blink of an eye—more accurately, a few blinks of my eyes—the memory is gone. I'm back to reality, just in time to hear Liara say something to someone behind me, back there… somewhere… or something… Can't think. I'm too distracted at the fact that she's barely a foot away, reaching for me.

"Aeryn." She barely whispers my name.

So much for reality. My brain gets blurry and my world hazy as soon, not only do I feel her hands on my arms but her breath on my lips. No, I'm most definitely not shaking. I'm trembling—though not for long. A whisper of a touch between our lips and for once I can actually believe I've been gone 2 years.

But just like 2 years ago; when everything I loved and cared about was taken from me within minutes, it ends. She pulls away, denying me more of what I had been yearning for, pretty much since I'd woken up on that damn Cerberus operation table.

Her face is turned. I can't look into her beautiful blue eyes but as my senses return I begin to realize I don't have to. The kiss… couldn't really have been called a kiss—it was barely a peck. And all I felt was pain and sorrow; all I tasted was anger and regret. It was strange, foreign and… wrong. I open my mouth to say something—anything—but she pulls more than her lips away, leaving me staring blankly out of the unnecessarily wide window of her office, overlooking the trading floor. And here I am again, back to being torn between whether or not I'm dreaming.

Shifting my eyes to follow her as she moves behind her desk. I notice that even the way she carries herself now is dramatically different. She's no longer the clumsily cute, adorably awkward Asari scientist I helped out of a Prothean security bubble; or fought for against a Krogan battlemaster and his squad of Geth troopers.

I died two years ago but was brought back exactly as I was then. She… She's changed. Understandable but it doesn't mean I have to like it. Besides, she changed in a way that couldn't be explained by just grief concerning my death. I decide that I would discover the source of this shift in personality. If the cause was an incident, I'll do everything in my power to fix it; If it were a person, I'll make them pay.

"My sources said you were alive, but I never believed-" Her voice breaks the strange silence as I move to stand across from her, "It's so very good to see you." Her voice still tickles my ears; even now, when there is a soft sadness in her voice that tugs at my heartstrings. Whatever may or may not have happened in the past two years, my feelings for her haven't changed—of this I am certain.

Wait, did she just say sources?


	2. Liara

**Liara**

* * *

"Surely you can understand that the payments-"

"T'Soni, you're information gathering skills are significant-you certainly live up to your reputation." The holographic projection of one of my current clients interrupts me yet again, "Which is why you must know how busy a man I am and that you will receive your payment in due time." Not good enough. My grip tightens ever so slightly on the datapad in my hand-of which contains records of his many overdue fees. I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out the sigh I have been holding for much too long. It seems he isn't quite getting the message. They rarely do—I am honestly surprised that I even try to reason anymore.

"Have you ever faced an Asari commando unit before?" I question, lacing the words with my increasing frustration, "Few humans have." In the back of my mind I laugh bitterly at myself as flashes of my mother on Noveria burn their way through into my conscious thoughts—if only for a split second, "I'll make you a deal: either you pay me or I flay you alive." I add, no longer attempting to control my temper, "With my mind."

Breaking the connection just as I see him fidget uncomfortably, the sound of my office door opening and closing registers in my mind. Odd, I don't have any clients this afternoon and usually Nyxeris messages me before—goddess, it can't be! Already! Reflexively, I turn and look over my shoulder and the stars be damned I am met with the midnight-green eyes that haunted me both while awake and asleep.

"Shepard!" My mouth moves and my voices cries before I can help myself. In one last attempt to remain calm and collected, I quickly mumble for Nyxeris to hold my calls as I step slowly towards the woman before me. I can barely believe she is real, let alone attempt to define what the sight of her was making me feel. I had just spent the better part of the last two years trying to recover from the last time I saw her. Saw her body.

I swallow hard, reaching for her in an attempt to verify that she isn't another figment of my imagination, haunting me. I think I whisper her name with the inane thought that it'll prevent her from disappearing again. Tears burn the back my eyes when I am met with the cool, rough, very-much-real armor, covering her body. I almost breathe a sigh of relief but I need more. I need to feel… her.

My body acts on its own in response to the thought. I draw her closer and lean in to touch her lips with my own. She is trembling—or perhaps it is I, I cannot tell for sure. She really is back. She really is alive. Alive and here in my arms. Countless times I've dreamed of this. Begged and pleaded silently for it—yearned for it. Cried myself to sleep over it, accepting that not only would it never be a reality but also that I didn't deserve it. Not after what I had done. Goddess, forgive me.

It takes every fiber of my being to pull away from her. I quickly turn away to avoid her eyes, afraid of what I may see in them. I tell myself that if I had let it go further, I would have lost what little control I have left. And I cannot afford to lose it now. Not when I am so close to finishing what I had started a year ago.

I move to my desk, still avoiding her eyes as I force myself to regain my composure, "My sources said you were alive," willing my voice not to crack, "but I never believed…" I accidentally let slip but caught myself quickly, "It's so very good to see you."

She is standing across from me on the other side of my desk now. I then come to the realization that she had yet to say anything since she arrived. The thought causes me to stiffen slightly. My mind races as I cannot help the many possibilities of what could happen, from flooding my thoughts. Yes, she was back but to what extent? Even with my information-gathering skills I had not been able to find out anything about Project Lazarus. Oh Goddess, what if they brought her back without her memories? What if they somehow… altered her—changed her? Yes, she is real, but is she the same woman that had died saving her crew two years ago? The thoughts are racing as fast as my heart as I stare at her, the silence becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

"Wait, you have sources now?" She asks in that playful, carefree, almost child-like tone of voice. A tone she—and only she—can pull off and still be taken seriously as a dedicated soldier and savior of the galaxy. It is music to my ears and it is all I need.

Turning away quickly again and covering with a small semblance of a laugh, I choke back a sob and hide the single tear that escapes my control.

* * *

**A/N:**

Well then. That was interesting.  
The initial exchange between Liara and Shepard when they first meet on Illium in **_ME2_** was a tad short for my tastes so I decided to... elaborate a little bit.  
I mean yeah, I wasn't expecting a full-on love scene or anything but it would have been nice to have had a little more than a peck before it's down to business.  
Lucky I have an overactive imagination I guess...

In terms of Shepard's POV; I get that Shepard is this big hero that goes around saving the galaxy but in my head, my Shep has kind of a... quirky mind. Maybe since she's full-on paragon and a spacer/war hero (aka angst-free). Or maybe because hey... I'm playing as her so she acts like me, only natural she thinks like me, right?

And Liara... writing in Liara's POV was hard.  
It would have been easier if the story featured her during **_ME1_** but since she'd changed quite significantly by ME2 it was a little harder to portray that and still make it believable.

Blarp.


End file.
